Former Pinterest COO Sues for Gender Discrimination
Pinterest’s former COO, Françoise Brougher, is suing the company for gender discrimination, saying she was fired in April after “speaking up about the mistreatment,” the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Brougher joined Pinterest in 2018 as its top female executive, serving as “a №2” to CEO Ben Silbermann, she told the Times. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in a San Francisco Superior Court, Brougher says she endured a sexist work environment and discrimination by male peers.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Brougher recounted her time at Pinterest in a Medium post. She described being excluded from meetings and left out of decision-making processes. Brougher wrote that other women at Pinterest reached out to her after experiencing similar treatment. In July, the Washington Post revealed that former Pinterest employees Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks had also accused the company of racist and sexist discrimination, and had filed complaints against Pinterest with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
Brougher says she was penalized in a performance review after suffering sexist remarks by Pinterest’s CFO Todd Morgenfeld. During a project, Morgenfeld allegedly asked Brougher, “What is your job anyway?” According to Brougher, he was then asked to provide feedback on her job performance.
“Todd’s assessment of my 2019 performance did not follow the process of balancing positive and negative feedback or assessing my achievements in my role,” Brougher wrote on Medium. “All he wrote in the positive section was, ‘she seems to be a champion for diversity issues.’”
Brougher says she reported the incident to human resources and was subsequently fired by Silbermann in a 10-minute video call. She says she was asked to train Morgenfeld to be her successor.
Pinterest told the Times that it’s conducting an independent review of its work culture and policies.
